Hello everyone!
After being under a stay-at-home order for more than a month, many of us are eager to reengage with the rest of humanity and resume our normal comings and goings. Unfortunately, we still have to wait.
To give us something fun to do while complying with the stay-at-home order, I challenge you to a literary scavenger hunt.
Rules:
- Look in books to find something that satisfies each category.
- A different book must be used for each category.
- Once you’ve found all twelve categories, share what you found and the books they came from in the comments section.
Categories:
- A weapon
- A difficult decision
- A beautiful setting
- A first kiss
- A mistake
- A betrayal
- A loss
- Best friends
- More than two siblings
- A single parent
- A grandparent
- A talking animal
Good luck! Happy reading!
Katie
katiemerkelwriter 
Here is what I found for each category:
1. A weapon: Peter’s sword in “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” by C. S. Lewis
2. A difficult decision: Annabel deciding to become indentured to Lord Ranulf le Wyse in “The Merchant’s Daughter” by Melanie Dickerson
3. A beautiful setting: The dancing field in “The World That Forgot How to Dance” by Olivia Berrier
4. A first kiss: Katniss and Peeta in “The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins
5. A mistake: Gilly’s letter to her mom about her foster home in “The Great Gilly Hopkins” by Katherine Paterson
6. A betrayal: One of the kids – I won’t spoil the book by saying who – in “Scouts” by Shannon Greenland
7. A loss: Missy’s abduction and murder in “The Shack” by William P. Young
8. Best friends: Wash and Reb in “Escape with the Dream Maker” by Gilbert Morris
9. More than two siblings: Ender, Valentine, and Peter in “Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card
10. A single parent: Garrow in “Eragon” by Christopher Paolini
11. A grandparent: Lolo in “Merci Suárez Changes Gears” by Meg Medina
12. A talking animal: All the animals in “Adventures of Adam Raccoon: Forever Falls” by Glen Keane
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So fun!! Thanks for this, Katie. Here are my answers:
A weapon
– Game of Thrones – There are SO many, but let’s go with Needle
A difficult decision
– A Moment in the Sun – Rei’s decision to leave home
A beautiful setting
– The World That Forgot How to Dance – (Whaaat? shameless self-promotion?? Don’t judge me.) I’m thinking of the final scene ❤
A first kiss
– Ready Player One – This book actually fit into so many categories, lol.
A mistake
– The Martian – Don’t. Blow. Up. The. HAB.
A betrayal
– The Lord of the Rings – I’m looking at you, Smeagol…
A loss
– Between a Rock and a Hard Place (aka – 127 hours) – Spoiler alert, it’s on the cover…
Best friends
– Sherlock Holmes – One of my very favorite Bromances
More than two siblings
– Ludwig Wittgenstein – M’boy had a BUNCH of siblings
A single parent
– Catching Fire – Katniss’s Mom (CF is pictures because it’s my favorite of the three. Fight me.)
A grandparent
– Fullmetal Alchemist – Winry’s Granny (This was by far the hardest category to find! Not many literary grandparents out there.)
A talking animal
– Pearls of Lutra – But really any of the Redwall Series.
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A weapon – currently listening to the second Mistborn book, The Well of Ascension. Coins, dueling canes, and armies abound.
A difficult decision – The Hunger Games feels rife with these, a pretty obvious choice, I think, but a good one.
A beautiful setting – I kept trying to think of a beautiful landscape, but kept coming back to one series. It feels a bit like a cop out, but one of my favorite parts of the whole Harry Potter series is Rowling’s descriptions. The magic of Diagon Alley is hard to beat. Perhaps not entirely beautiful but wondrous, which, to me, is better.
A first kiss – this is one of the hardest because romance-themed books are unlikely to have the First Kiss these days. I think Louisa May Alcott’s Eight Cousins featured Rose’s first kiss.
A mistake – in Four Dead Queens the protagonist makes a major mistake in trusting her long-time friend.
A betrayal – I’m going to use Sabriel because the betrayal is part of a backstory so I don’t feel it gives away anything important within the book itself.
A loss – Patti Smith’s Just Kids is a beautiful memoir that showcases her crazy younger days in NYC with Robert Maplethorpe, and also includes his untimely death of AIDS.
Best friends – A Scorcery of Thorns. They’re separated most the book, but the best friend still helps Elisabeth save the world.
More than two siblings – easy answer is The Lion, the Witch, & the Wardrobe, but since I used Horse & His Boy elsewhere, I’ll go with Code Name Verity instead. Only one brother appears in the pages but the others are mentioned. I feel like that’s a bit lackluster too, so I’ll make up for a quality answer by an abundance of answers. In the fun vampire book Sunshine by Robin McKinley, the titular Sunshine has two half-siblings.
A single parent – Gregor The Overlander also by Suzanne Collins is one of my fav MG series.
A grandparent – The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner. This whole series is amazing, and even though I read it years ago, I still remember who Gen’s grandfather was, even though he wasn’t a key player in the books.
A talking animal – The Horse & His Boy, featuring said Talking Horse.
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I’m having a lot of fun taking your scavenger hunt and increasing the difficulty by imposing more rules on myself. 🙂 Can I find all of these in the last 12 novels I read? Can I find them all in Rick Riordan? In Harry Potter? Thank you for posting this fun challenge! I’ll post official blogged answers as I finish.
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I love that you’re taking it to the next level by adding rules. That’s awesome! I can’t wait to hear what your titles are.
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First round is using the last 12 books that I read:
1. A weapon – Endgames by Ru Xu features Crow, a sentient android that controls the Goswing’s murder of flying, heavily armed drones.
2. A difficult decision – Of all the difficult decisions in Diane Duane’s A Wizard Abroad… I’m going to have to give this one to Ronan. For a boy who has always needed to be in control, yielding his self to Another and not knowing what would become of his mind or physical form afterwards took guts.
3. A beautiful setting – The Burrow has always felt like home, gnomes and weeds and chaos of housing a family of nine plus guests and all. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is when we first touchdown in the Burrow’s drive. It’s beautiful in the way that a clean kitchen is with the kettle steaming on the stove top.
4. A first kiss – It certainly isn’t Monty’s first kiss, but the first kiss between him and the boy he loves does happen during a stolen night away from their chaperone in Paris in Mackenzi Lee’s The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue. It’s kind of a big deal for Monty.
5. A mistake – Pig definitely doesn’t mean, I don’t think, to drive the van up the ramp to the broken section of the dam’s wall and then over the wall in Dice Tsutsumi and Robert Kondo’s The Dam Keeper: World Without Darkness. Poor kid just can’t both see over the dashboard and reach the petals. And I expect being chased by a frog with a gun is distracting for the best drivers.
6. A betrayal – The biggest betrayal by far in the first book of the series The Dam Keeper is Pig’s father’s abandonment of him, leaving him in charge at such a young age of himself and the dam. I have feelings about this, and I hope he does turn out to be mad, because I’m not sure I’m going to accept any other explanations. (Libraries are still closed. I am still unable to borrow the third and final volume.)
7. A loss – Oof. Yeah, lots of loss in Jennifer A. Nielsen’s The False Prince. I think the loss of the queen of Carthya hits Sage the hardest.
8. Best friends – I don’t want to be cliche, but Jo and Laurie are a pretty iconic duo still in Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy by Rey Terciero and Bre Indigo.
9. More than two siblings – Turns out Clay has a whole squadron of blood siblings in the graphic novel of Tui T. Sutherland’s The Dragonet Prophecy.
10. A single parent – Among these 12 the most befitting the title is Emily’s and Navin’s mother from Kibuishi’s Amulet series.
11. A grandparent – To find a grandparent in these 12, I have to go to Endgames where Queen Corazana Lina’s recently deceased grandmother Queen Corazana began a war that Endgames, well, ends. Her portraits make appearances in the text.
12. A talking animal – I am in luck here! In Kazu Kibuishi’s The Stonekeeper’s Curse, the inhabitants of Kanalis have been becoming slowly more animal as part of a curse. The vulpine Leon Redbeard joins the crew. He’s a bipedal, clothing-wearing, talking fox.
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